


Second Chances

by i_claudia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Pre-Slash, shamelessly ripped off of Dickens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-18 11:16:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s had trouble sleeping since the war, so much so that he’s moved from the Manor to a flat in London to get away from the memories and the silence. Here there is always noise to pull him from the nightmares, and the damp breeze off of the Thames helps clear the smoke from his mind. That night, sleep comes no easier, his mind still churning over the thoughts of the afternoon, his lingering anger warming him under the cold sheets. Potter is insufferable; the git makes him want to throw himself off a bridge every time they meet. He punches his pillow, restless. It is going to be a long night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/3422.html). (25 December 2007)

More than a year passes after the Final Battle before Draco Malfoy sees Harry Potter, Savior of the Wizarding World, again. He had been perfectly fine with that, he thinks sourly when he catches sight of Potter shopping with the Weasel in Diagon Alley on Christmas Eve. He notices them because they are the only two wizards in the street who actually look directly at him, even if it is only to scowl at him, in Weasley’s case. He gets only sideways glances and the tail-end of whispers from the others, which he does his best to ignore, keeping his face smooth and his back straight. It is the Malfoy way, after all, though he’d like nothing better than to turn savage and rip the stupid gossips in half. They have no idea, he thinks angrily, _no idea_ what his life has been like.

For a fleeting moment he hopes that the two Gryffindors will simply pass him by so he can finish his minimal Christmas shopping in peace and go home, but fate seems to have a different plan.

“Malfoy,” Weasley snaps as they come to a stop in front of him. “What are you doing here?”

“Shopping,” Draco says coldly. “Though I suppose the concept of having money to buy things with is foreign to you.” He doesn’t know where it comes from, this meanness, the urge to see how far Weasley will let him go before the redhead throws a punch at him.

Weasley’s face twists, but Potter puts a hand on his friend’s arm and shoots him a quelling look. It makes Draco angry, for reasons he doesn’t know and doesn’t care to explore.

“How is your mother?” Potter asks, and although Draco knows it’s just because they’re in public and Potter thinks he has to act friendly and solicitous for the press (there are no visible reporters, but Draco knows that wherever Potter is, the paparazzi are never very far away), the line is so perfectly delivered he can almost believe that Potter’s sincere. 

“She’s well,” he replies, just a hint of bite beneath his words. “Not being in Azkaban is doing such _wonderful_ things for her health.” He knows this is the moment where he’s supposed to say thank you, to fall on his knees and kiss the feet of the Boy-Who-Saved-Us-All, but he can’t do it. He can’t stand the flashbulbs of the press greedily illuminating the latest in a long string of humiliations delivered up to the Malfoy line. So he settles, with great effort, for not punching Potter in his miserable face instead.

Potter seems to pick up on the fact that he is treading on very thin ground, and at least has the good manners to look uncomfortable. Weasley has no such qualms. “A simple thank you wouldn’t kill you, _Malfoy_ ,” he says angrily. “You owe Harry that much: he saved your miserable life.”

Red starts to build behind his eyelids, and Draco knows if he doesn’t leave _right now_ he might do something that will get him landed in Azkaban. “Fuck off, Weaselbee,” he says, and turns to go. He only makes it a few steps when he feels a hand on his shoulder, and he jerks around out of the grasp of whoever it is, coming face to face with Potter.

“Merlin, Potter,” he says in exasperation. “Do we really need to extend this conversation? My Christmas spirit has its limits, you know.”

“Look, Malfoy,” Potter says, and somehow Draco doesn’t mind as much when Potter uses his last name. “I’m sorry about that. I’m not looking for an apology or anything from you, you know. Just...” He trails off and runs a hand through his disastrous hair. “Look, if you ever want to, I don’t know, talk or anything, let me know, alright?”

Draco regards him coolly. “As much as I’d love to indulge your saving-people complex, Potter,” he says, “I believe I’ll be better off without the help of the Wizarding savior.” He leaves Potter there in the street without so much as a ‘Happy Christmas’, but it doesn’t feel nearly as good as he thought it would, and he can feel the heat of Potter’s gaze on the back of his head all the way back to the Leaky Cauldron.

***

He’s had trouble sleeping since the war, so much so that he’s moved from the Manor to a flat in London to get away from the memories and the silence. Here there is always noise to pull him from the nightmares, and the damp breeze off of the Thames helps clear the smoke from his mind. That night, sleep comes no easier, his mind still churning over the thoughts of the afternoon, his lingering anger warming him under the cold sheets. Potter is insufferable; the git makes him want to throw himself off a bridge every time they meet. He punches his pillow, restless. It is going to be a long night.

Despite his mental whirlwind, though, he must have dropped off at some point, because he wakes suddenly to the soft dragging of chains across the floor. He knows that sound all too well, despite the fact that his own stay in prison was almost laughably short.

“Who’s there?” he asks the darkness, hating the fear that rises like bile in his throat. A soft chuckle from the shadows near the wall does nothing to improve his state of mind, and he pulls the covers up to his chin, wondering how long it will take him to reach his wand on the bureau and whether it will be fast enough.

“Don’t you recognize me, Draco?” a voice asks, amused, and Draco knows the voice but doesn’t want to believe it.

“Vincent?” he whispers, and the chuckle rolls out again over the darkness of the room. There is a whispered _Lumos_ , and Draco blinks against the light. It is indeed Vincent Crabbe, looking pale and gaunt but real enough, though he is weighted down with heavy chains.

“How,” Draco begins, quite unable to wrap his mind around the fact that _Vincent Crabbe_ is standing in the corner of his bedroom. “I mean, aren’t you dead?”

“Yes,” Vincent says simply, as if that explains anything. Draco shakes his head, hoping that something will somehow click with the movement. 

He tries again. “What are you doing here?”

Crabbe looks at him solemnly. “I’ve been sent to warn you, Draco.”

Draco raises an eyebrow. “Warn me? Against what? Dead friends sneaking into my bedroom?”

“Don’t be thick, Draco,” says Vincent, and that’s rich, coming from him, thinks Draco. Vincent Crabbe was undoubtedly the thickest of the thick pair that was Crabbe and Goyle. A good friend, he adds hastily, in case this spirit Crabbe can perform Legilimency, but thick as all get-out.

“Thick?” he says out loud. “I’m not being thick. You’re being very suspicious, though. How do I know you’re not a... a Weasley with a glamour or Polyjuice, trying to frighten me?”

“Believe what you want, Draco,” Vincent says, and Draco starts to relax, but then Vincent’s voice is suddenly loud and deep and he seems to grow so that he fills the room. “Ignore me, though, and you will spend eternity wishing you had paid attention.”

Draco burrows deeper into his blankets, trying to block his ears. “What is it?” he cries out. “What do you want of me?”

Crabbe shakes his chains. “Look at these, Draco Malfoy. Look at the names on them: names of, people I tortured, people I doomed, people I killed. Look well, Draco, because even as we speak now, heavier chains are being forged for you: chains you will carry year upon endless year, until the ending of the world.”

At this, Draco sits up straight, anger driving out the fear. “Listen here, Vincent, or whoever you are, but I’ve done nothing since the war—I didn’t even have much of a part in the war itself! No offense, but you were always more of a Death Eater than I ever was. I couldn’t...” and this part is still hard to say, even though he is ever-so-slightly, marginally, maybe grateful to the old manipulative codger, “Merlin, I couldn’t even kill Dumbledore!”

“You’ve done enough, Draco.” Crabbe speaks with cold finality, and Draco can almost feel the crushing weight of his impending chains. He can’t speak; he only stares helplessly at this harbinger of doom.

“Tonight,” says Vincent, and Draco gives up all hope. “Tonight you will be visited by three spirits.”

Draco blinks, the feeling returning to his fingers. “Spirits?”

“Spirits,” Vincent confirms. Draco blinks again, confused. “You can save yourself, Draco, if you listen to what they say and see what they choose to show you.” His expression softens, and Draco can almost see the boy he used to know beneath the face of this chained ghost. “Try, Draco,” he says. “Don’t let yourself make the same mistakes I did.”

Draco gives a harsh laugh. “What, torture Longbottom?” he says. “Fat chance of that; I’ve no desire to land in Azkaban.”

Vincent gives him a long look. “Learn forgiveness, Draco,” he says, and is gone.

Draco leaps out of bed and grabs his wand, then searches the flat. There is no sign of any visitor. “What the hell?” he asks the empty darkness. “Who am I supposed to forgive?”

In the end, he decides it was all another dream and climbs back into bed, resigning himself once again to a long night.

***

Draco wakes suddenly to hear a clock chiming and a crash in the kitchen. It’s probably a house elf from the Manor, he thinks in irritation, come to check up on me as per Mother’s orders. He goes to investigate anyway. He peeks around the corner, and comes face to face with his cousin Nymphadora Tonks, her hair vividly, eye-smartingly pink. He gives an undignified squeak and tries to backtrack furiously, but Tonks’s hand shoots out and grabs the front of his nightshirt before he can get away.

“Draco!” she says happily. “I’ve been waiting for you!” She looks ruefully at the remains of what seems to be a dish rack and his entire set of plates on the floor. “I’m sorry; I seem to have destroyed quite a few of your dishes.”

“Lovely,” he mutters under his breath before remembering that she’s dead. He wrenches out of her grip and scrambles back away from her. “You’re dead!” he says accusingly. “Why are you in my kitchen?”

She shrugs. “I’ve come to show you a few things. I thought your friend... what’s his name...”

“Vincent Crabbe,” Draco says, a very bad feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

Her face brightens. “Yes, that’s the chap. Hasn’t he already explained things?”

“He might have,” Draco says cautiously, wishing very much to be asleep and having his normal nightmares.

“Brilliant,” says Tonks. “Then what are we waiting around here for?” She holds out her hand expectantly.

Draco looks at her outstretched hand for a moment, then sighs and—against all his instincts and his better judgment—grasps it.

He feels a familiar jerk behind his navel, but the way they’re traveling is nothing like a Portkey. Colors and sounds flash through his mind too quickly to catch or absorb. They come to an abrupt stop, and Draco goes sprawling on the floor from the impact. “Ow,” he says feelingly, and Tonks grasps him by the arm, pulling him up.

“Do you know where we are?” she asks him, watching his face closely.

He looks around in growing recognition at the familiar walls of the Hogwarts Express. “Of course I do,” he says with his best sneer.

“Good,” Tonks says, unperturbed, and he remembers that her mother was a Black. “Watch.”

He sighs, but obeys, though the corridor is empty. Soon, his eleven-year-old self comes into view, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. His heart gives a little squeeze; his younger self looks so self-assured, so confident. Enjoy it while you can, he thinks, resisting the urge to run to himself and tell the little Draco everything.

“He can’t see you,” Tonks says, as if she’s read his mind. “None of them can.”

“Obviously,” Draco snaps. He’s seen where the younger Draco is going, seen who’s inside the compartment next to him. “Do we have to see this? I go in, Potter rejects me; I remember all of it.”

“Watch.”

“Fine,” he grumbles. “Bloody ghosts.”

He watches Young Draco enter the compartment, practically breezing in, watches him stick out his hand, watches Potter refuse to shake it. He winces at the brief fight, and sees his younger self leave, confused and furious; he remembers feeling the heat of embarrassment and anger cloud his mind.

“Look at Harry,” murmurs Tonks, and so he does. Potter is laughing with Weasley, but his eyes are watching the younger Draco leave. Confused, Draco looks at Tonks. 

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asks. “So he watched me leave. He’s probably celebrating his triumph at embarrassing a Malfoy.”

“He could care less who your family was,” Tonks says patiently. “You were an arse to him, but he still didn’t completely want you to leave.”

“Why?” demands Draco. “All I wanted to do was be his friend. If he wanted me to stay, why did he act as if he wanted to get as far away from me as he could? That’s how he always acted in school.”

Tonks holds out her hand again, and, cursing himself ten ways from Sunday for getting himself into this mess, Draco takes it.

He doesn’t recognize the entryway of the house—it must be a house, he thinks—where they land. Tonks points, and he sees a small door under the carpeted stairs. 

“What is it?” he asks warily.

She raises an eyebrow, for a moment looking so much like his mother that he has to blink and shake his head. “Why don’t you find out?” she says.

He sighs and walks to it, dropping down to unlatch the door and open it. This had better be good, he thinks; he is already starting to get tired of all this rushing about, looking at pointless memories...

The sight that greets him stuns his mind into silence. A miniature Harry Potter sits inside the dusty cupboard, wrapped in a worn blanket and sniffing quietly, his knobby knees drawn up to his chest. Draco looks back at Tonks, open-mouthed. “This can’t be Potter,” he says. “Potter never lived in a cupboard. I heard rumors, but they were just rumors, weren’t they? Just look at how he acts now; he’s obviously been showered with attention and fame his whole life.”

Tonks regards him for a moment. “Draco,” she says. “Does that look like a boy who has been showered with fame? Does he look like the type who’s been loved at all in his entire life?”

Draco watches the small boy for a short while before he realizes that Potter is whispering, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands clasped.

“Please,” the mini-Potter whispers. “Send anyone, I don’t care who. Send my grandparents, my real relatives... the Dursleys can’t be the only ones left, they can’t be. I don’t care if I have to work every day for the rest of my life, just get me out of here. I’ll... I’ll study extra hard in school, I promise, if only someone will come for me.”

Draco stands up, unable to hear any more. “Why are you showing me this?” He looks back down at little Potter, who is now curled up, his back to the door. Draco doesn’t want to know if he’s crying or not. Potter isn’t supposed to cry, Potter isn’t supposed to show any weakness; Potter is supposed to be insufferable and defeat the evils of the world with a wave of his hand as he signs autographs with the other.

“You asked to see why Harry watched you leave,” Tonks says simply. “Ron was his first—his very first—friend. He hated to turn away someone else who could have been a friend too.”

“Then why did he?” Draco asks, almost petulant, the eleven-year-old rising in him again. “Why didn’t he want to be friends?”

Tonks fixes him with a look, and he shifts uncomfortably. “Think, Draco. You were telling him how to act. He’d been told what to do since before he could remember, and then he found this new world where he thought he could be whatever he wanted. Tell me,” she says, almost disinterestedly, “would you have let him be his own person, or would you have tried to control him?”

Draco opens his mouth to protest, but before he can, Tonks snaps her fingers and he is pulled off his feet and through time again, crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs when they stop.

As he picks himself up off the parquet floor, muttering about spirits and their terrible modes of transportation, he looks around, face brightening in recognition. He knows this room like the back of his hand—they sold the chandelier and the piano after the war, but the paintings and the fireplace are still the same as ever, and the floor itself is unmistakable.

“This is the Manor,” he says, almost accusingly. Why have they come here?

His cousin seems pleased at this demonstration of his keen powers of perception. “Watch,” she says, giving him a hand up.

“You know,” he grumbles. “I’m starting to hate that word.” Nevertheless, he looks obediently, and sees that it must be one of his parent’s famous Christmas parties. Adults dressed in their finest move slowly through the room, chatting softly and accepting flutes of fine wines from house elves. He quickly locates his younger self—he looks to be about thirteen or fourteen, perhaps. A girl approaches his younger self and greets him cautiously, and Draco shuts his eyes, remembering what comes next. His father had taken him aside afterwards and reprimanded him sharply; he can feel the hot flush of embarrassment once again creeping up the back of his neck.

“Look,” Tonks reminds him, and he opens his eyes unwillingly. Young Draco has a sneer on his face, and seems to be saying something unpleasant; the girl is close to tears. He delivers a last line with satisfaction, and she bursts into sobs and runs away. Draco watches his younger self strut off, obviously pleased, as the adults around him murmur in concern.

He leans against the wall. “Does this have a point?” he demands, looking at his cousin. “Or is this whole thing just an exercise in finding all my faults? Oh look,” he says sarcastically. “There goes that Draco Malfoy, don’t you know he makes girls cry?”

Tonks turns to face him. “No,” she says impatiently. “The point of this is to get you to actually _examine_ your life, to see where you’ve gone wrong and how to fix it.” She holds up a hand to stop his protests. “And you have gone wrong, Draco, though not as wrong as you could have. You were a selfish child, and the war turned you into—”

“What?” he interjects angrily. “A coward? I’ve had enough people tell me that already, thanks.”

“No,” she tells him with a strange look. “You’re not a coward, Draco. In some ways you’ve been braver than most. You’re just closing your eyes to what the world could hold for you.”

Before he can argue further, she snaps her fingers again and the world goes dark.

***

He wakes up sneezing, with the feeling that something is very wrong with the world. “Finally, Malfoy,” a voice says, and the feeling of wrongness increases tenfold. “I thought you’d sleep for hours.”

Draco sits up groggily, and squints at the figure crouching over him. The man has red hair and a wicked grin, and full realization comes to Draco in a rush of misery. “You’re a Weasley twin,” he says despondently, dropping back down onto his pillow. He knows he should be angrier that his next guide is a _Weasley_ , but he can’t bring himself to care. The man _is_ dead, anyway. “I’m doomed. You can probably do all sorts of malicious things to me and no one will ever believe me. Ever.”

The Weasley laughs. “Yes,” he says, still chuckling. “I’m Fred Weasley, but I’m just here to do my ghostly duty. Although...” he looks thoughtful and Draco, who had started to relax, is once again seized with dread, “I might have to spread the word that you wear a nightcap. It really is a stunning look for you.” 

“Oh, bugger off,” Draco says crossly, forgetting for a minute that the man... spirit... thing can probably make his life thoroughly hellish. “It’s the height of fashion.”

Fred Weasley laughs. “Come on, then,” he says, and snaps his fingers.

Draco lands in a heap once again, and thinks, uncharitably, that Weasley has probably done that on purpose. He struggles upright, looking around. “Where are we?” he asks. They are standing in a small living room which looks like it has been decorated by warring tribes of blind koalas. Small eucalyptus trees, decorated with fairy lights, gently sway on various shelves and tables, and Chudley Cannons posters fight for wall space with Muggle postcards, beaming Wizarding photographs and newspaper clip-outs. Various atrocious hand-knitted pillows and throws have been strewn about the room, and the coffee table in front of the mustard-colored couch is littered with take-away boxes and old copies of the Daily Prophet and Quidditch Weekly.

Fred says nothing in response to Draco’s question, but nods to where a figure has emerged from a doorway. Draco sucks in a breath as he realizes that it is Potter, dressed in the same clothes Draco saw him wearing that very morning.

“This is _Potter’s_ flat?” he hisses. Weasley laughs again, and Draco thinks in irritation that even if he didn’t already hate all of the Weasleys, he’d hate this one just because he seemed to find such pleasure in Draco’s discomfort.

“Harry’s flat, yes, which he shares with Ron and Neville.”

“Longbottom’s here?” Draco exclaims, horrified.

“Not at the moment, no. But who else do you think would have so many plants?”

Draco grudgingly allows the point as he watches Harry flop down on the couch, cross his arms behind his head, and sigh mournfully at the ceiling. Draco narrows his eyes. He’s never really approved of dramatic displays—unless they’re his own, of course—even though Potter is handsome enough to actually... He pulls himself out of that train of thought with horror. He finds _Harry Potter_ in no way attractive, he reminds himself severely.

“Still thinking about what Malfoy said?” Hermione Granger says, entering the room. Draco latches onto her words in an effort to distract himself, though he wrinkles his nose in distaste. He’s never liked her. Respected her intelligence and her left hook, perhaps, at least silently, but he’s never liked her. He catches sight of the ring on her left hand and has a brief, horrifying thought that maybe Granger and Potter are engaged.

Almost immediately, though, Ron Weasley comes in and drapes his arm around her, putting the lie to that thought, and he pushes away the strange feeling of relief. It doesn’t matter to him what Potter’s love life is like. He glances up at the ghost-Weasley, to see his reaction to the scene, but the spirit is watching impassively.

“Yeah,” Potter says, half-turning and propping his chin up on his arm. “I know it’s stupid, but...”

Weasley cuts in. “You’re right there, Harry. Malfoy’s nothing but trouble.” Harry sits up fully and opens his mouth, but Weasley isn’t finished. “You can’t save everyone, you know.”

Harry picks at the sleeve of his sweater—a horrid orange thing that looks like it’s been eaten by Kneazles. Draco wonders if Potter owns any clothes that _don’t_ look like they’ve been attacked by wild animals. 

“I know,” Potter is saying. “It’s just...” He looks up at his friends helplessly. “I can’t sit by and let him wallow forever, can I? He obviously isn’t able to pull himself out of the funk he’s in, and... well, I’m sort of the reason he’s there, aren’t I?”

“Now see here, Potter,” Draco says loudly, at the same time Weasley rolls his eyes and says “Look, Harry, the git brought it upon himself. You got him out of Azkaban—isn’t that enough? Just forget about the ferret.”

Draco, fuming about the ferret reference and the fact that clearly Potter thinks he is a helpless wreck, nearly misses Granger’s soft whisper to Weasley, who leaves with a huff. She watches him go fondly, then turns to Harry, sitting next to him on the couch. Curious in spite of himself, Draco moves closer.

“It’s not pity for him, exactly,” Potter is telling her softly as she smoothes his hair with a sad smile.

“I know,” she says.

Potter buries his face in his hands. “It drives me mad,” he says, voice muffled. “I just... I wonder, you know? If maybe things had been different, what could have happened...” Draco is reminded forcefully of the small boy in the cupboard, and has to grab onto one of the eucalyptus shelves to steady himself.

“But they weren’t,” Granger says quietly to Potter. “You can’t dwell on the ‘what-ifs’ in life, Harry.”

“I don’t even know why I _care_ ,” Potter says, head still in his hands. “He’s such a pompous...” He trails off. “Christ. Why is my life never easy?”

Granger is looking at him with a strange expression, and Draco leans forward, trying to see Potter’s face, trying to figure out what’s going on, but before he can hear more, the ghost-Weasley snaps his fingers and the scene disappears.

Draco braces himself for another crash landing, but instead they seem to be suspended in mid-air. “Where are we now?” he asks.

“Azkaban,” Weasley says shortly, and when Draco looks down, he can see the familiar shape of the prison, see the waves crashing wildly upon rocks of the forsaken island. He shivers, remembering his time behind those walls. There had been no Dementors, but there had been no need; his mind had supplied the black visions just as well on its own.

He looks away, but Weasley grabs his shoulder and forces him to look back at it. “Look at it,” the redhead growls. “Look well, Malfoy. That’s where you were, where your whole family was, and it’s where you’d still be if Harry hadn’t thrown his weight around trying to get you out.”

“I never asked him to!” Draco snaps, fighting to free himself. “I never asked him for _anything_ like that!”

“You didn’t have to,” Weasley tells him, eyes hard. “Harry did it because he is a kind man, because he couldn’t see someone like you going to prison just to appease the public’s hunger for revenge.”

Draco finally jerks away. “If he’d cared so much, he’d have gotten my father out, too,” he mutters rebelliously.

“That was impossible, and you know it,” says Weasley firmly, and Draco looks away. He does know it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept. Weasley folds his arms and watches him.

“I hate it!” Draco bursts out finally—and Merlin, he’s confessing this to a _Weasley_ , but he can’t stop it now—“I hate that he’s put me in debt to him. Everyone watches me, did you know that? They watch me and they whisper about that poor misguided Malfoy boy, saved by the great Harry Potter, and then Potter looks at me like he expects me to _do_ something—”

“He expects nothing,” Weasley interrupts. “The only thing he ever wanted was to be accepted for who he was as a person, not as an icon, and he thought he might get it from you, because you’ve never put him on a pedestal, you’ve always treated him as simply another human being, but now you won’t even give him that much. You nurse your imaginary grudges and push him away when the only thing he wants to do is accept that hand you held out to him years ago.”

Draco doesn’t look at the spirit, doesn’t want to think about what he’s been hearing. Weasley sighs and shakes his head. “You really are hopeless,” he says, and snaps his fingers.

***

Draco wakes a third time to an empty room, and heaves a sigh of relief. “Finally,” he mutters. “No more bloody spirits.”

“Such language, Mr. Malfoy. I doubt your mother would be pleased if she could hear you.”

Draco involuntarily inhales a corner of his blanket. Spluttering, he sits upright, glaring at the man who has appeared at the foot of his bed. “Professor Snape!”

Snape inclines his head in acknowledgement, but does not speak again. Draco sighs. “I suppose you’re here to drag me about and make me look at all the naughty things I’ve done, like the others.” He looks at Snape, who does not answer. “Well? Aren’t you?”

Snape does not say a word, which makes Draco worried. The man had always been reticent, to be sure, but he’s never known Snape to pass up an opportunity to say something snide or sarcastic. Climbing out of his bed, he goes to stand by Snape, who looms over him, tall and silent.

“Alright,” Draco sighs. “Let’s get this over with.” Snape makes no visible motions, but the world dissolves and reforms around them, and Draco looks around with interest. They are at the gates of a cemetery; a grey, forsaken looking place with stunted trees and a tangible feeling of gloom. It is snowing.

“Couldn’t you have done something about the weather?” he asks Snape crossly, but the man says nothing, merely points to the open gate. “Fine,” Draco says, walking through it and into the graveyard. “Where are we?” He thinks for a moment before adding a more pertinent question. “ _When_ are we? I mean, when is this in time? Past and present I’ve already seen... perhaps this is the future?” Snape fixes him with a level stare, and Draco exhales noisily. “Very well then, future. And someone’s dead. Is it Weasley?” he asks hopefully. 

Snape remains silent, and Draco gives up the conversation, following the familiar billowing robes. When the other man stops suddenly, Draco nearly runs into him, but catches himself, shuddering at what it would feel like to fall through Snape. Like cold water, he assumes. Cold, dank water from a dungeon pool.

“What is it?” he asks, not expecting an answer. Snape points to a figure standing by a tombstone, and Draco is filled with a dreadful, terrible certainty. “What if I don’t want to look?” he says, drawing back a few steps. Snape raises an eyebrow impatiently, and when Draco moves no closer, he scowls and steps forward.

“Fine, fine,” Draco says hurriedly, moving out of reach towards the stone. He can sense Snape following him as he moves closer to the grave, each step growing heavier and heavier. When he draws level with the man standing in front of the grave, he starts with recognition. It is an older Potter; not by much, by appearances, but the way he stands, worn and weary, he looks to be an old man.

“Potter,” Draco says to him, though he knows the man can’t hear him. “You look terrible. Even worse than usual, in fact.”

It is then that Draco looks at the tombstone, and the world goes absolutely still.

“DRACO MALFOY,” the stone reads. It goes on, listing dates and comforting phrases like “DEVOTED SON”, as if that makes a _difference_ , but Draco cannot see, cannot feel his toes, cannot hear past the roaring in his head. The dirt is freshly turned, he notes distantly. He turns to Snape in shock.

“This is what you brought me to see?” he demands, furious and frightened, though he won’t admit it. “Did you want to scare me by showing me my own mortality? You’ll have to try a bit harder than _this_ ,” he yells, though his hands are shaking. Snape stares him down, impassive, and he turns away again with a strangled noise.

He can’t bring himself to look at the stone again, so he looks at Potter, wondering what on earth he’s doing there. Potter, as if hearing his thoughts, starts speaking. 

“Draco,” he says, and Draco starts. Since when has Potter called him by first name? “I... God, I’m sorry. I should have been there, should have made you listen to me. I tried to, I tried so hard...” Potter puts a hand to his eyes, his shoulders trembling. “I knew I should have tried harder, should have broken the shell you put around yourself, but I let them convince me you were fine, that you were just... yourself.” He sinks to his knees, wrapping his arms around himself, and Draco notices that he is not wearing a coat.

“Potter, you fool,” he whispers. “I’m not worth it. How long have you been standing here? Go inside somewhere, get out of the cold.”

Potter is still talking to the silent grave, his teeth chattering. “Did you know that I’d be part of the team that was called in? Dark Magic, they said, at your address; they said you’d been attacked. I never thought...” he stops himself again, gripping the stone fiercely, his knuckles turning white. His voice is ragged when he starts again. “I’m so... so sorry, Draco,” he says again, brokenly, and slumps down onto the fresh dirt, leaning forward against the cold gravestone.

Draco is moving before he realizes it, trying futilely to shake Harry awake—he’s not sure when _Potter_ became _Harry_ in his head; the shift has happened slowly, irreversibly—but his hands pass right through the other man. “Harry,” he says urgently. “Harry, come on, you’ve got to get out of here, you’ve got to make Granger and Weasley pack you into blankets with hot water bottles. I bet you didn’t even tell them you were coming here, you idiot.” He notices that Harry’s skin is cold, grey, clammy. “Sweet Merlin, Potter,” he says in despair. “How long have you been out here? Did you even _think_ to cast a warming charm before you came out here to spill your secrets to my gravestone?” Somehow, the concept of his own death seems less important, less shattering, now that Harry is out here without a coat, slowly freezing, unable to let go.

“Come on,” he says desperately, willing Harry to hear him, to leave, to do _something_ other than sit there and shiver helplessly. “Harry, it’s not your fault. I’m an arse, a stuck-up, priggish snob; I’m not worth it...” Harry doesn’t move, and Draco notices his eyes start to close, his shivers start to fade. “Harry!” he says desperately. “Harry, get up! Get _up_!”

Draco looks at Snape, unafraid now to show his fear. “Snape, you have to do something! Call one of the Golden Trio, call the Weaselette, fuck it, call _Longbottom_ if you have to... you can’t just let him _die_ here!”

Snape shakes his head. “I can do nothing,” he says. “This is one possible future; this is where you are heading even now, as you do nothing and continue to shut yourself away with your self-pity and second guesses.”

Draco looks back down at Harry, who has slumped further down on the stone. “I can’t just stand here and watch him die,” he says angrily. “I _won’t_.” He tries to put a hand on Harry again, but his hand passes right through the other man’s arm. He turns back to Snape, hot with anger and frustration and feelings he didn’t even know _existed_ , and the professor slowly raises his hand and snaps once.

***

Draco leaps out of bed with a yell, startling the pigeons sitting on his windowsill. “Harry!” he yells, then curses. What day is it? He needs to know what the date is. He has the sudden, dreadful thought that he has somehow been pulled into a parallel universe, and he is too late. He throws open a nearby window and calls to the first person he sees—a small boy who looks up at his wild face with frightened eyes.

“You there!” he calls down to the boy. “What day is it?”

“Why, it’s Christmas Day, sir!” the boy calls back.

Draco cackles. The sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day, and he’s not too late! “Excellent!” he cries down gleefully. “Now, my fine young lad, have they sold the Christmas turkey that’s been in the shop down the street yet?”

“You mean the one as big as me?”

“Yes, yes! That’s the very one!”

The boy shakes his head. “Not yet, sir!”

“Bravo, excellent!” Draco shouts back, excited. The inklings of a plan have begun to form in his head, and it will be worth it just to see Ronald Weasley’s face. “Here, catch!” He throws a Galleon down to the boy, who takes it with wide eyes. “Go and buy it, and tell them to send it to Mr. Harry Potter! I’m sure they can find his address somehow.”

The boy looks up at him in wonder. “ _The_ Mr. Harry Potter, sir?”

Yesterday, a comment like that would have made Draco furious with its worshiping tone, but today he only laughs. “Yes, my boy! Now go! And keep the change!” The boy’s eyes grow even wider, and he salutes before pounding off helter-skelter down the road. Draco draws his head back inside, chuckling, and sets out his ink and quill. He’s willing to bet that Potter’s got his flat warded beyond all belief, but he’s sure he can find a way to get an owl through. Tonight, he will begin sorting out the mess that he has let fester for so long.

But first, he has a letter to write.


End file.
